"We've made this a very difficult call," Coughlin said. "And the thing that bothers me about it is, first, the word "runner." There is no runner in the end zone. When a guy catches the ball in the end zone, that's it. He's not going to take another step, Mike. He's on the sideline."

The play in a nutshell: Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw the ball to Beckham, who appeared to catch the ball in the end zone with both feet down before Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler quickly knocked the ball out of Beckham's hands. The play was called a touchdown, then called a touchdown again after several of the officials conferenced.

But then it went to video review, where it was ruled incomplete. The Giants had to settle for a go-ahead field goal, and then Patriots quarterback Tom Brady did what he does and engineered a game-winning drive.

"The rule is pretty clear on this," Blandino said Monday on NFL Network. "I know there has been a lot of debate about the rule, but it says you have to have control, you have to have both feet down, and after the second foot is down, you have to have the ball long enough to establish yourself as a runner.

"And that doesn't matter if you're in the end zone or in the field of play. It's that element of time. Beckham, the second foot hits, and it's a fraction of a second, maybe a fraction of a second after that, the ball comes out. He didn't have the ball long enough after the second foot was down to establish possession, that's why it was overturned to incomplete."

"In this regard, [Beckham] does catch the ball. And if you look at it closely, he does have both hands on the ball, he does have his left foot down. Then comes Butler in, and he makes a heck of a play. The kid (Butler) is very good," Coughlin said.

"And he knocks the ball out ... Odell had it in his hands. He did not have a top hand and a bottom hand, both hands were parallel. And the ball was slapped out of his hand. Now, the difficult thing about this, Mike, is when you go back to the rule book, the Golden Tate precedent that was set, was a fumble that became a touchdown. I mean, he had the ball as long as, for as much time as Golden Tate did. Point-oh-seven seconds. One is ruled a touchdown, one isn't. The idea is consistency here, and it really continues to be a problem, in my opinion.

"Whatever has been determined to be a gray call, to me, is not going to be overruled. There was a call on the field that was a touchdown. It was a touchdown. It took a couple of guys to get together, but it was a touchdown. As such, if it was really in a gray area position, I really expected that the touchdown would continue to be ruled. Where is this going to go in the future, as we look at how can we solve this issue, because it is controversial."